The Trouble With LVDT Shafts

As a business that repairs and remanufacturers ATM parts, we get to see a lot of defective inventory. Sometimes parts are worn out through overuse and lack of maintenance. Sometimes parts are defective because something unusual happened to them. Sometimes however we see parts wearing out because of issues around build quality.

An LVDT shaft is the heart of an NCR ATM. Responsible for measuring the thickness of the bank notes as they pass through the ATM, the LVDT ensures that any double note picks are not dispensed. If the LVDT fails then the ATM becomes inoperable.

Normally it would be the moving component to the LVDT shaft (the flange bearings) which would wear down and eventually need replacing, however a rising percentage of the LVDT shafts we see come in over the past year do not have a problem with the flange bearings. Instead they come in because the shaft itself has corroded, and we think this is a trend which is going to continue.

LVDT Shafts used to be made out of steel and treated with zinc phosphate. Rust resistant, they had a lifespan that was far longer than the actual ATM that contained it. The new LVDT Shafts we see still contain a steel core; however they are now plated with a much less durable material. The reduction of the material quality has seen the lifespan of the shaft go down from an average of twenty years to just three years.

When we first saw the rise in LDVTs coming in with the same issue, we started work on manufacturing our own. We understood we would need to get deep inside the manufacturing process ourselves to enable us to supply LVDTs to the standards we feel they needed to be at.

After many months of design we are now able to produce LVDT Shafts to a superior quality than many of the corroded LVDTs we have seen come in for repair. Precision engineered using the latest manufacturing techniques, our LDVT shafts are plated with zinc phosphate and have rollers made completely out of solid steel, significantly increasing their lifespan.

We produce these LVDT Shafts in such a way as to ensure our customers are not paying a huge premium to keep the same quality as they are used to. We can do this because we have a history of following the same process for other ATM parts; manufacturing our own to improve their quality and reliability.

In a market crowded with low quality replacement parts, we understand the need for our customers to be able to keep their ATM estates up and running for as long as possible, and intend to release further technical bulletins such as this should we find any other similar quality issues.